The present invention relates to collapsible containers in general and more particularly to a reusable collapsible container attached to a pallet.
Collapsible containers, generally made of corrugated paperboard and often attached to the top of a pallet, are used, for example, for storing parts in a manufacturing plant and for transporting parts from one plant to another, or for containing goods for transportation in bulk from one location to another. The containers are sometimes disposable but, preferably, they are reusable and, for the purpose of facilitating storage and transportation of empty containers, they are made such as to be collapsible under a relatively small volume.
An example of a collapsible pallet-mounted container is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,637 and consists of a pallet base to which is attached a collapsible container having four wall panels, two opposite wall panels being scored such as to be foldable, and a bottom panel having a central portion attached to the pallet top and two outer panels attached at their edge to the non-foldable side panels and connected to the portion attached to the pallet top along fold score lines. By folding the scored foldable side panels inwardly and tilting the non-foldable side panels along one of the score lines of the bottom panel, the container may be collapsed above the pallet in a flattened configuration for storage.
One inconvenience of such a structure, which is common to collapsible containers mounted on a pallet, is that some portions of the collapsed container projects beyond the periphery of the pallet and the collapsed container is susceptible to becoming damaged while being transported in a collapsed configuration, or while being stored, a plurality of pallets with collapsed containers attached to each pallet being normally stored superimposed on top of each other in order to save space.
Another problem connected with collapsible containers is that the containers, when erected, may tend to spring back to a configuration intermediary between the flattened configuration and the fully erected configuration, at least until the container is partially filled.